Matt Shelton

On average, I get a “courtesy call” from one Verizon service or another almost every day. As both a VZW and FIOS customer, each professional service organization tries regularly to up-sell me. So far I have not received a call from both on a single day, but I won’t be shocked when/if I do. My wife and I have the lowest possible family plan for wireless, and the 20/5 FIOS plan with home phone service. Slap that all together with their combined billing, and we’re shelling out ~$180 per month for media-related utilities. This is a much better deal than when we were paying almost $300 monthly for 3G network access on our phones.

About six weeks ago, I received a notice that my introductory FIOS rate was about to expire, giving me no price protection, and increasing my cost by about $10 per month. I called and the best they could offer me was another $10 per month for a lower data rate than I currently had, or another $20 per month for a slightly better one. My wife and I agreed that there was no sense in paying to get less, so it made better sense to pay to get more, and spend the $240 annually for slightly faster network service. I didn’t act, however, because I thought I’d call back later and see if I could haggle for a better rate.

So tonight when I got a call from “UNKOWN, CALLER” at 6pm I was generally nonplussed. They were right on time.

Tonight, however, was different. I was in an odd mood, and when the woman asked if I had a few minutes to talk about how she could analyze my calling plan to make sure we had the best possible deal, I told her she had up until my 11-month-old started crying (this doesn’t take long), and that we already had the cheapest family plan.

Or so I thought.

She looks at my account, sees that we use fewer than 100 minutes between us, and offers me a “loyalty” plan. This saves us $10 a month, with no contract extension. I double-check that we’re not losing our SMS options, and she notices that my wife’s line has a more expensive plan than mine (and she only sends a dozen or so messages a month). Fixing this saves us another $5. She also asks if I want to use my New-Every-Two and upgrade my phone. I do, but since I can’t settle on a phone I like, I have to pass for now.

Then she asks if either of us send picture messages, and I take the opportunity to note that my old phone now won’t send them — I get an error message that I had chalked up to it being old. She discover that when we turned off our internet service, it put a “network access lock” on the phones, so pictures couldn’t upload to their hosting service. She fixes it, and the call is now +3 awesomeness in Verizon’s favor, and -15 dollars in mine.

This was the best five minutes I’ve ever spent with Verizon’s customer service. Maybe luck will strike twice and the FIOS folks will give me a break as well. One can dream, right?

(Photo Credit: Verizon Ad)

geek life customer service, phone, verizon

A little over a month ago, I was gifted with a light-duty trailer. It’s about 15 years old and I’ll use it to haul crap to the local recycling/refuse center, transport craigslist purchases, annoy the cats, etc. The only catch is that my vehicle for towing it is a 2002 Saturn SL sedan, but he’s scrappy, so I have high hopes. In Massachusetts, for light-duty trailers there’s no insurance premium, but you do have to register the trailer so that it has its own plates. Your insurance company gives you an RMV-1 form to bring to the ever-exciting Registry of Motor Vehicles, you pay some fees, get a plate, and you may commence hauling.

We switched insurers last year after Mass de-regulated it’s auto insurance. I was a Commerce customer via AAA for years, and put up with their piss-poor customer service for the 15% discount I was recieving. (It was *almost* an even trade.) My company offered a group discount for a couple of companies, and based on what I wanted to insure, my only option was Liberty Mutual. I hadn’t heard anything *bad* about them, but also nothing *good*. From the first call with our rep, I’ve been pleased, but not so over-the-top pleased that I felt I needed to say anything about it.

When people do what you perceive as their job, that’s not much to write home about. When they exceed those expectations, then it’s noteworthy.

I’ve been pretty busy the last month and haven’t had a chance to get the trailer hitch installed on my car. As a result, I never bothered to register the trailer after my visit to Liberty’s office. Today I received a call from the agent who assisted me saying they noticed I hadn’t registered it yet and that my RMV-1 form was about to expire.

Wow, that’s totally my own darn fault. Matt FAIL.

Then she said there was a new form in the mail and that it should arrive tomorrow.

Liberty Mutual WIN. +10 for making my life easier, guys. Thanks.

geek life customer service, insurance

I don’t care how good you are at programming, finding bugs, whatever. If you’re rude, or if you speak poorly to people who don’t understand your… quirks…. you will wind up being shunted to the side. No one wants to work with someone who makes them feel beat down all the time, or someone who they simply can’t understand, or someone whose reaction to every issue is to start wailing about the end of the world.

– Catherine Powell (Via SvN)

This is such a great concept to keep at the front of one’s mind. Everyone, from your customers to your co-workers, family and friends, deserve your *niceness*. Their concerns and questions are real. Your attitude can go a long way toward keeping the peace!

Her follow-up post defining What Really Is Nice? also hits home for me:

To me, being nice is really about attitude and phrasing more than it is about the basic underlying message. It’s about taking the information you have to convey and making sure you convey it in a way that is respectful … and considerate of your audience.

geek habits, management, quotes customer service, management, quote